


Counting from Ten

by never_going_home



Series: Nobody Lives/Everyone Dies (Except Merlin) [1]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Counting, Death, F/M, Gen, Grief, Immortal Leon (Merlin), Immortal Merlin (Merlin), Immortality, M/M, arthur and gwen's children, everyone dies except merlin, guess we'll never know, haha did you see what i did there with the character tags, perhaps
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-12
Updated: 2020-06-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:28:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24679270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/never_going_home/pseuds/never_going_home
Summary: We count from ten, for all those that were lost, and many more besides.
Relationships: Gwen/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Onesided Merlin/Arthur Pendragon
Series: Nobody Lives/Everyone Dies (Except Merlin) [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1784308
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Counting from Ten

**Author's Note:**

> what is uuuuupppppp  
> here have a fic that might be sad might not who knows i have the emotional understanding of a teaspoon and last time i thought i had written something that wasn't particularly sad i moved multiple people to tears, sooooo. read at your own warning i guess?

_Ten._

Merlin sent Arthur to Avalon, and he cried. Cried for his dead friend, for the man he loved from afar.

_Nine._

Merlin buried Morgana, a cairn of stones the marking of one of the greatest magic users to be or to come. And he wondered if a blade forged in a dragon’s breath would kill him too.

(It didn’t.)

_Eight._

Merlin went back to Camelot. Gwen, to Gaius, to the four remaining members of the original Round Table.

_Seven._

(There was no Gwaine, not now. Gwaine was dead too.)

_Six._

But it was Gwen who appointed him the Court Sorcerer, Gwen who legalised magic, Gwen who united Albion. (Perhaps that hadn’t been Arthur’s destiny, then. Or perhaps he had just failed.) Gwen gave birth to twins – a son and a daughter. (She let him name the daughter, so the heir to the throne was called Freya. But the son, the son was named Merlin.)

_Five._

Gaius passed on, and he was given a knight’s burial. Merlin watched the flaming pyre and thought how fire had taken his uncle in the end.

_Four._

Percival died of a sickness nine years later.

_Three._

Leon disappeared on a quest twelve after that.

_Two._

Gwen died in her bed, her white hair spread out like a halo, like she truly was an angel.When they were alone, truly alone, Merlin tried to say sorry. And Queen Guinevere the First of Camelot smiled, but it was his best friend, Gwen Smith, who thanked him.

_One._

Now he was alone. Dragoon’s age he took, although he stayed the same in visage. Camelot flourished, and Camelot died. The descendants of Freya, of Gwen, of _Arthur,_ became one with the common people, then none at all.

He did not cry, but he hoped.

Hoped when men went to take back a ‘Holy Land’. Hoped when a plague killed off one-score and five _million_ innocent people. Hoped when war after war was fought in the name of God, of the King, of the Queen. (But never for Arthur, never for the man that was a myth and nothing more).

Once, he forgot Gwen’s laugh. (And when something happens once it will surely happen again.) He forgot the faces of all who had once been dear to him, lost perhaps forever in the mists of time and grief.

But forever he would remember the colour of Arthur’s hair when it was lit by the sun.

And once, when a girl not unlike the Once and Future King in appearance asked him why he was sad, Merlin smiled.

Then he counted from ten.


End file.
